


Black Bird, Fly

by thelittlelioness



Series: Sweet Dreams [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/M, M/M, bluesey is background, primary ship is pynch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 08:45:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11620050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlelioness/pseuds/thelittlelioness
Summary: Ronan doesn't have the emotional capacity to deal with his father's death and his feelings for Adam. He just might be falling apart. Hogwarts AU.





	1. ENDING

**Author's Note:**

> It's finally here! I started this fic a year ago and I'm so happy to have finally finished it!
> 
> This is a sequel to Feels Like Coming Home. Not necessary to read before this one but I definitely recommend it!

Gansey’s answer came on a Tuesday in late May. Manila and ink. Magic  
and — “This explains everything!”

Adam’s answer came slowly, surely, unexpectedly. In the arms of his best friends, the impossible boys he trusted more than anyone.

Ronan’s answer was there all along, unquestioned, taken for granted. It was hidden in his dreams, lost in his unwanted desires.

Blue’s answer stared her in the face when she tried hard to ignore it. She just had to believe in herself, accept identity amidst all the pixie dust circulating around Fox Way.

And Noah — Noah’s magic was taken from him one fateful day. Murdered. Sheer, sometimes, but waiting for something more. Remembered.

~

“Goddamn, Parrish. This is fucking good,” Ronan said one morning at breakfast, looking over the Divination homework that Adam had done for him the night before. His deep red tie accentuated the pink around his eyes, and his curly hair was mussed. To think he could have spent the night studying if he wasn’t going to sleep. “Thanks, I guess.”

Adam sat down — he would only stay for a minute before heading off to the Slytherin table to get some French toast. But Gansey pushed a plate in front of him — so he made himself comfortable, damn the rules.

“Don’t seem so surprised,” Gansey replied, stabbing into a poached egg and letting the yolk spill all over his toast. “Wouldn’t be the first time, right?”

“I was busy last night,” he protested. Adam snorted, and Ronan relented. “Okay. I went out flying.”

Gansey shot him a look.

“It’s different at night. Besides, you —”

“That’s not what I was going to say.” Gansey glanced conspicuously at the Slytherin table. “You didn’t go out with him, did you?”

Ronan shook his head. “Okay, mum. I went with Matthew.”

Gansey nodded, but his mouth was still pressed into a frown. “I just don’t like the way he looks at you.”

Nearby, a pair of underclassmen Ravenclaws glanced at Ronan. “He’s a greywaren,” one of them whispered, and the other took a step back. Before they could say anything else, one of Hogwarts’ resident ghosts shooed them away. He approached the Gryffindor table on his favorite skateboard, the tacky one that looked like a nineties sweater, forcing the two girls to move aside.

“‘Sup.” Noah Czerny took a seat — as much as he could — next to Ronan and across from Gansey. “Looks nice, Adam.” He skimmed the parchment that Ronan still held. “Merlin knows Lynch doesn’t know how to tie his own shoes, let alone complete his assignments.”

Ronan silently glowered, but he could never hold any true animosity towards Noah. He had a string of curses on the tip of his tongue, whip-sharp but not directed at anyone in particular. Instead of inviting more admonishments from Gansey or detentions from any passing professor (like Greenmantle, who had it out for him), he slammed his cup of pumpkin juice down on the table especially hard.

“Well, we’ve got a three-hour Latin seminar today, so I think Ronan’s homework will lap all of ours,” Adam offered. It never had to be spoken: Ronan was genius at the subject, and surely he was a shoo-in for translator-Auror positions with his language skills if he so chose to apply after graduation.

“It must’ve taken you hours to do this,” Gansey murmured, skimming the lines of Adam's smooth writing — purposefully neat to mimic Ronan's hand — over Ronan's shoulder.

“Well, I was with Blue. She was certainly helpful — I saved a lot of time I would have spent in the textbook. I was really only helping myself learn the material.”

If Ronan tensed, Adam didn’t notice it. “Damn,” he said, willing his voice to stay light. “I thought you two were avoiding each other.”

“No, it’s not like that,” Adam protested, but his voice was far off, his eyes focused on something behind Ronan.

Ronan swiveled in his seat to see Blue approaching. She waved, and they all waved back with suspicious smiles that didn’t do an effective job in making it seem as if they hadn’t been talking about her.

“You look… uncharacteristically refined, maggot,” Ronan said. She didn’t want to talk about her breakup with Adam, but it was all he could think about. Ronan owed it to her not to be so invested in her personal decisions, so he tried to put it out of his mind. Business as usual.

“Aww, I’m touched.” And she did seem a little too proud of her herself. If Ronan derived constant amusement by her endless creativity in dressing herself, she took just as much pleasure in gauging his reactions. Adam never really got it. Today, underneath her midnight blue school robes, she wore a sparkly gold shift dress.

As Noah pointed out that “uncharacteristically refined” was such a Gansey phrase, Blue reached into her pocket to pull out her wand. “Just wait,” she said, wearing such a cheesy smile that the whole group turned silent, waiting. “It lights up.” She shrugged off her robes to demonstrate. Ronan didn’t miss how Adam’s gaze followed the new parts of her body now available to look at, not that he was paying any particular attention.

Blue gave her wand a little flick, and little yellow lights danced along the neckline, hem, and sleeves. Gansey immediately burst into applause, and Blue beamed.

Slipping the robes back on with one hand and grabbing a yogurt cup in the other, she made to leave. “I've got an astronomy study group in the tower half an hour before class, so I should get going. But I'll see you at lunch!”

“These days she studies almost as much as you, Parrish,” Ronan said as the four of them watched Noah float after Blue to keep her company on the walk up to the tower. He stretched his arms out languidly. “You must have rubbed off on her, after all these years.”

Adam shot him a look, like, must you say something insensitive every time you open your mouth? But Ronan knew Adam too well to feel ashamed, and he knew Adam knew him well enough to not take his comment personally.

“First term exams begin tomorrow, Ronan,” Gansey chided. “Most of us are studying as much as Adam this week. But while we’re on the subject, can we go over that reading comp passage for Latin? I’ve worked on the vocabulary, but I still struggle to recognize certain words with different grammatical endings.”

Adam took out the sheet from his school bag, and together he and Gansey worked on translating with correct grammar. “Here it’s plural. So it’s referring to both Paris and Domitia — the affair. That’s why Salvius plans Paris’ death.” Ronan remained quiet for the most part, adding in quips about the story’s drama or framing the difficult parts in a different manner to help Gansey understand. Even when he wasn’t active in the conversation, he was present, always nodding when Adam and Gansey were spot on.

Intellectually, Adam knew the parts of him that were cynical were shaped from the years of abuse he’d endured. He’d had plenty of time away from his parents over the last several years to reflect on that. But it was still second nature, so it required diligent work. He was trying to frame his breakup with Blue in a healthy way; he wouldn’t let his old, self-destructive habits return. Here, focusing on the monotonous grind of schoolwork with his best friends, it was better.

~

“I can’t believe you thought this was a good idea,” Blue grumbled, tugging the sleeves of her coat down over her fingers.

“Relax.” Noah grinned. “Once we get outside you won’t feel a thing.” He pushed open the doors to the courtyard and marched the gang over to a picnic table he’d brushed free of snow minutes before.

From beside him, Adam giggled. “You’re right! It’s like springtime out here.” Wistfully, he gazed around, taking in the landscape without the cold to distract him from the beauty. It humbled Ronan to see how Adam could still be surprised and in awe of the wonders magic could achieve, even after all these years.

“It’s all worth it to see Gansey in that,” Ronan said. Gansey wore a bright plum peacoat and a pair of fur earmuffs in a shade of light brown perfectly matched to his trousers. When Blue first saw Gansey wear them, she didn’t talk to him for a week, and she only forgave him when he explained that they were vintage, from his grandparents.

“You can’t feel the cold regardless, Noah,” Gansey pointed out with a raised brow. “If your magic went wrong, I had to be prepared.” He took off his earmuffs and rested them around his neck. “But bravo. It’s quite nice out here. Although I wonder if one could still get sick from staying out in the cold for too long…”

“We’ll just have to pester the house elves in the kitchen for some cocoa after, to warm our insides.”

Blue took Noah aside and whispered to him, grinning and waiting for his reaction. “I haven’t done that in years!” he exclaimed in response to her idea, and they immediately set to work building up a large ball of snow. Blue sent Gansey around to gather or magically conjure other necessary components. When they completed the first snowman, he carved a lightning shape into the snow to pay homage to Harry Potter’s service to the Wizarding World. Blue called him a nerd, but this was not a new argument between them.

And Adam and Ronan just sat at the picnic table. Ronan had brought his broom outside, but it lay untouched on the ground. For now, he was content watching the others in their silly snowman escapade, reminiscing on the snow-creatures he’d built with his brothers when they were younger. Aurora had a soft spot for magical creatures, so she’d taught them to form thestrals and hippogriffs and occamies in the snow. Adam read his notes over, refreshed from the warm air and cool breeze.

“Hey,” Ronan said after a little while. “What’re you studying?”

“History of Magic. Oral exam in a few days.”

“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Ronan said easily.

“Thanks,” Adam said. “Do you remember that day, when we were eleven, when you showed me the shed of all of you and your dad’s dream objects for the first time?”

Ronan nodded.

Adam gave a little smile to himself, to the memory, and continued. “I was thinking about that day earlier for the first time in a while. I didn’t realize it at the time but you knew I was a wizard before I did. Half of me didn’t even believe it when I got my letter. Gansey had hoped, mostly because he was so enamored with this world and wanted to share it with me.”

At this, Ronan rolled his eyes. “He hasn’t changed.”

“But you were so sure. Even before that thing with the tarot cards and Cabeswater, you were certain.”

It was an observation, a fact. But it also felt like an accusation, a question. Ronan shrugged off the heavy weight his heart was lending to this conversation. “I had a hunch about you.”

A smile. “Go on.”

And now it felt like Adam was flirting with him, but Ronan wouldn’t let himself believe that. God, he wanted to believe that, but if he was wrong, he wouldn’t be able to stand it the letdown. “Sargent’s family —” Ronan jutted his chin in the direction of their friends and the new snow family under construction. “They know a thing or two about auras. I just got this sense from you.”

“Like a premonition?”

Ronan shrugged. He didn’t know where this conversation was headed but he felt like he was close to divulging something secret.

“Just a feeling. I’m not psychic.”

“It meant a lot to me. Still does. Over the course of this term, as the professors have got us thinking more seriously about career placement, I’ve been thinking about the start of it all, you know?”

Ronan Lynch was always truthful, but he was not always honest. If he was honest, he would tell Adam that it meant a lot to him that it meant a lot to Adam. If he was honest, he would tell Adam that that feeling never subsided. At age eleven, it was surety that Adam was a wizard, that he was more special that he thought. At age twelve, it proved to be the unconditional love and support of a best friend. At age fifteen, it morphed into something scarier, more serious. Now, at age seventeen, it was all of these things. He yearned to confess. But he kept his mouth shut.

Even if Adam had been flirting with him, he just got out of a relationship with Blue. Ronan didn’t know how they did it, how they remained friends and were still able to look each other in the eye during class. Whenever Ronan looked Adam in the eye half of him wanted to kiss him and the other half wanted to run away.

Ronan couldn’t think of what he could say without spouting love sonnets, so he didn’t. He watched his friends and let Adam return to his notes.

As Blue and Gansey put the finishing touches on what they claimed would be the last snowman, Noah snuck around so that he was behind Gansey, and with this new protection, he reached to the ground and formed a snowball. Ronan just sat there, arms crossed, and smirked; Blue silently clapped her hands together, eager to join in on the fun.

Noah pelted Gansey in the back of the neck, cackling brightly at Gansey’s betrayed expression. The two went at it. Blue teamed up with Noah because Gansey’s reactions were too good not to exploit. “Come on, Jane!” Gansey protested. “I thought you were on my side!”

Blue’s only response was a haphazardly-formed but quite large snowball aimed straight at his chest. Her goal of recalibrating his center of gravity and knocking him off his feet was only partially fulfilled: he stumbled, kicking up the snow around him as he found his footing again.

“Adam,” Gansey complained. “I’m single-handedly fighting a war on two fronts. Help me, please?”

But Adam just shook his head and gestured to his notes. “I came out here to study. One can only take the library for so long, and the Slytherin common room is so cold this time of year.”

“Bet Czerny can enchant you to fix that, dontcha think?” Ronan quipped.

“Cheng would never do this to me!”

Ronan mock-gasped. “Are you picking Cheng—” At Henry’s name, Ronan performed an overdramatic sneer, “— over your beloved Adam Parrish?”

Gansey rolled his eyes. If he had a retort, it was lost in a double-attack from Noah and Blue. “Ronan?” Gansey pleaded. Noah and Blue were vicious in their attack, and Gansey wouldn’t have a moment of peace while he was outnumbered like this.

“Nah, he’s too cool for a snowball fight,” Blue teased. Ronan took that as a challenge, and in an instant, he was mounted on his broom with a handful of snow. Without bothering to pack the snow together, Ronan threw it in Blue’s direction with an arm well trained in Quidditch. It broke apart as it fell, turning into a shower of snow above Blue’s head. Ronan caught Adam’s eyes and smirked. “I tried,” he said with a shrug.

Adam rolled his eyes in that affectionate way Gansey’s friends always did, and something in Ronan eased.

They continued to play around in the snow, allowing themselves time to just have fun. With this lot, it was always Glendower, or school assignments, or some fancy function to attend. Ronan’s friends had him doubled over in laughter in such a way that was rare for him. The man makes the reputation and the reputation makes the man, but sometimes that facade breaks.

Then, in an instant, quick and harsh as ice cracking, everything stopped. When his laughter stopped, they didn’t notice because he had to catch his breath. His heart hurt, and he didn’t know why, but he was sure something was wrong. Ronan stared at the snow, waiting for his lungs to start operating normally. But they didn’t, and he glanced quizzically at each of his friends.

Before anyone could speak, Headmistress McGonagall strode outside with a brisk gait and a troubled expression.

“Mr. Lynch.” Her tone was clear, but her eyes betrayed her melancholy. Ronan didn’t understand what was going on, but his gut clenched anyway. The world was upside down.

“There has been an emergency. I’m going to need you to come with me. Your brothers are already waiting in my office.”

Panic gripped at his throat. He had an idea of what it was, what it had to be. McGonagall gazed over at Gansey, Blue, Adam, and Noah, her professionalism breaking as empathy crawled onto her expression. “I’ll send for you four later this afternoon.” She seemed to want to say more, but she decided against it and turned to Ronan. She nodded at him and made to go back inside. Numbly, Ronan followed, leaving his friends standing in the snow, concerned and confused.

~

They buried the body, but still Niall would not go away. He always lingered in the shadows, omnipotent despite his demise. And it hit Ronan the hardest, because their shared powers equated to a bond unlike any other in the Lynch family, separate and incomprehensible.

Ronan’s friends attended the wake, and he expected that to change something, but it didn't. It didn't distract him from the images of sallow skin and blood spilling all over the floor. Gansey and Blue and Adam were a reminder that Ronan existed in more worlds than one; eventually, school would begin again. A change of scenery would be nice. Here, however, surrounded by the Barns…. The three of them did little to help, but it wasn't their fault.

Gansey was quiet and respectful; years ago, he had really taken a liking to Niall’s otherworldliness. It was hard to believe this picture-perfect family was now permanently fractured, and oh, how he ached for them. But at the back of his mind he could not help but think of his own death, his own funeral that very well could have happened. It wasn't something that he’d ruminated on in years; he usually dwelled on the why and how of the situation, but something about this cloudy damp day just brought him back.

Blue was struck, drunk on the realization that this was the reason the ladies of her household had been acting so shifty in the months previous. They’d been keeping a secret since St. Mark’s Eve, but Blue knew all attempts at sleuthing would ultimately be in vain, so she gave up, trying not to envision the deaths of everyone around her. She still couldn't believe it. This was worse than most outcomes she might have guessed at: when she was young and thought herself a squib, the Lynch family was all that brought her solace.

And Adam. He and Ronan had worked out a routine after first year, Adam always staying at the Barns on school breaks, but that was a bust this time around, clearly. Adam hated himself for thinking it on a day like today, but he knew he would have to stay at his parents’ home, at the trailer park. Even a couple weeks could stretch on forever. His stomach turned over itself as he imagined how easy it would be to resettle into his father’s fists. All these years since he started school, he’d never spent more than a few days here and there back home, but there was a first time for everything. And then he would look at Ronan’s face and guilt would crawl up his throat. He forced himself back into the here and now because Niall Lynch had shown him kindness and magic when he was at a loss for both; Niall’s middle son had shown him the loyalty of a best friend, and Ronan was hurting, so Adam needed to be there for him. It was still difficult to be present, but Adam found that it was getting easier and easier with time.

Ronan watched Adam approach him and knew he would try to articulate what Niall meant to him. But the words would never do it justice. Ronan turned to Matthew, away from Adam. He didn't have the emotional capacity to deal with this today. He’d been wondering more and more lately if he would ever have the emotional capacity to deal with it. Maybe some things were best unsaid.

As the crowd started to get antsy, too much quiet and stillness for one day, Ronan locked himself in the bathroom, stared at the paisley shower curtain he had been complaining about for years, and tried not to question God’s plan. But it was tough. God, it was tough.

~

It was two weeks later, and Ronan had been living in reverse: unconscious during the day, restless at night. Every day, once it was pitch black outside, Ronan mounted his broom and soared above the trees. Maybe they would stop talking to him if he got high enough. He sat up there, watching, waiting, until his muscles became sore. He could use sleep, a light nap, but he sure as hell wasn't going to let himself dream, so he just sat down on the moss, broomstick beside him. Soon, another sat with him, and he caught a whiff of pot, so he knew who it was without having to look. Ronan had never had an issue with Kavinsky’s recreational drug use, but now, the smell was sticky and oppressive.

“Don't you know you shouldn't drink and fly? Some may say that’s—” Kavinsky bared his teeth. “Dangerous.”

“I'm not drunk.” But as he said it, the firewhiskey from earlier rumbled in his empty stomach.

“Sure,” Kavinsky said jovially.

“Why are you here?”

“I’ve brought you more pills.” Kavinsky held up a ziplock bag of blue capsules, the ones Ronan had been swallowing at dawn to prevent his father’s face from invading his sleep. “I’ve also got stimulants with me, if you want those.” He winked at Ronan, but Ronan just turned away.

“Cat got your tongue?”

All Ronan wanted in that moment was to wipe that smirk off Kavinsky's face. “Eat shit,” he mumbled, but the words just didn’t pack a punch. He wanted to say something else, regain his dignity, but a sob encircled his throat like a boa constrictor. Ronan coughed to mask it.

Kavinsky just hummed — it sounded loose and European and entirely Gansey. He hopped on his broom and flew away, knowing without hesitation that Ronan would follow.

The forests around the Barns were unkept, and as such, none of the Lynches really flew through the trees; they stuck to the trails like a hiker would on foot. But Kavinsky disregarded this completely. Ronan definitely wasn’t gonna warn him of brambles or thorns or branches — in fact, the idea of K injuring himself out here put half a smile on his face.

Kavinsky kept going, heading in one particular direction as if he knew his left from his right in these vast, homogenous woods. Ronan caught up and gave him a pained, querulous look.

“I know you Gryffindors always play by the rules,” he taunted, and the line of Ronan’s mouth flattened. “Clearly, watching you and Dick on the Quidditch field is just… even I feel repressed.”

Ronan waited for K to finish taunting and make his point.

“And I know Parrish is too boring to join Quidditch… but you really need a Slytherin education. I can show you how it’s done.”

“There’s an empty field a few miles north of here.” Ronan desired solitude, but he said it anyway.

“I’ll race you.”

“I’ll win.”

“My broom’s newer.”

“Mine was a better model to begin with.” He didn’t mention that Niall had dreamt up this broom for him when he was fourteen. He probably didn’t need to.

Without meaning to, Ronan considered Adam, the day Adam had started dating Blue. That day had been full of all sorts of confusion. Ronan, in denial of everything, had been offended that their group could split off into couples, he’d been protective of both Blue and Adam against each other despite trusting them both. He’d been hurt, though at that time he wasn’t able to put his finger on why. Now, he wondered how he was supposed to feel about their split. Ronan didn’t want to capitalize off of their pain, but that day, he’d felt the tiniest splinter of hope for the first time in a long time. And then everything flipped over itself. The timing was off; clearly, God was signaling him not to pursue this. Not now. Maybe not ever. But forever was a long time, and frankly Ronan was so fucking tired of waiting. He should have known things would get worse before they got better.

Ronan must’ve been quiet for some time, because Kavinsky asked, “What are you thinking?”

 

Ronan doubted that Kavinsky actually cared, but he was convincing enough. “Parallel universes,” he answered, which wasn’t a lie, exactly.

“The parallel universe in which you’re a better Quidditch player than me?”

Everything Kavinsky said was some sort of bad flirtation, but maybe that was just the drugs. Flying tonight, Ronan had no problem with. The wind soothed his feverish, itchy skin and his raw throat. But he’d had enough of Kavinsky’s bullshitting, so he just took off. He’d humor Kavinsky, so long as whatever game this was didn’t require words.


	2. JIGSAW

Ronan let Matthew run ahead of him onto the Hogwarts Express; he could tell his little brother was itching for some semblance of normalcy, familiarity amongst the chaos and heartache wrapped up in the past few weeks. Declan, button-down crisp as ever, had abandoned them early, muttering something about Head Boy duties. Mango, Matthew’s messenger owl, fluttered after him, freeing up Ronan’s arm so he could haul their trunks onto the train. Matthew hugged Ronan in thanks, which meant more to him than it should have, and ventured down the corridor to find his fellow third-years. 

Ronan ran his hand along the top of his head, fingers surprised as they met stubble instead of curls. His haircut would take some getting used to, but so would a lot of things. 

He turned in the other direction to find the carriage he always shared with Blue, Gansey, and Adam. It was unspoken tradition, started back when they were fast friends who knew not a thing about one another. Ronan took his time, leisurely strolling as if he wasn’t pulling a massive parcel of his belongings behind him. 

He stopped just before he reached the carriage, angle askew so he could see them but they couldn’t see him. And he just watched. The three of them were all touched by Niall’s death, but they could still come back here, laugh and trade chocolate frog cards as if their stomachs weren’t about to give way. 

Back in September, when the four of them met up on the train, ready to kick sixth year’s ass and maybe finally discover some useful information about Glendower, Ronan’s heart had sung for these nerds. And now, he wished he could absorb that love and euphoria back into his system, but the black hole in his heart was all-consuming. 

Gansey was as regal as ever. He smiled through his eyes as Blue made some wry comment, and Ronan had to wonder if Gansey knew how obvious his affection for her was. That was an interesting concept. It wasn’t like he distrusted any of his friends — but Gansey wasn’t a realistic sort of person, and he sometimes seemed to chew up and spit things out when he’d finished dissecting their wondrous qualities. Not with people, though; never with people. 

Ronan humored his heart and allowed himself to observe Adam in a way he never did when they were together. One of his hands played with the fraying fibers at the edge of his seat cushion, and he was talking with Blue, shyer around her now than he’d been when they’d first met. Ronan had  _ tried  _ to convince him to stay at the Barns for the remainder of the holiday following the funeral, but Adam had insisted he go home. Ronan wondered how Robert Parrish was doing, and he clenched his fists. The Barns weren’t that far from the Parrish trailer; he didn’t know if it was the water there or what, but Adam’s hair seemed fluffier and his freckles were more pronounced and Ronan had to look away now. He was about to do so, but he kept looking for a moment longer. As per usual, Adam was dressed up early in the school uniform, only today something seemed off. And then Ronan realized it was the faint dark marks on his skin, barely visible under the white cotton. But Ronan had trained eyes. 

They’d had that argument before, Ronan and Adam. He didn’t have the energy for a rematch. 

Down at the end of the hall, the very last carriage, a boombox played aggressive early 2000s punk, muffled by the translucent glass door. Ronan gathered his nerves and walked in. Fighting the urge to let them know that his electronica was far superior, he quietly sat next to Kavinsky and let K’s volatile energy recharge him. Shaky as it made him, this hurt less. This hurt far less. 

~

Gansey was not used to loneliness, but for the past week he had made its acquaintance. He kept reminding himself to give Ronan some space, that Ronan would come back in time, but it  _ had _ hurt when he saw Ronan on the train with Joseph Kavinsky. To Gansey, Ronan and Adam and Blue and even Noah were his found family; there were no other people he could imagine seeking out in times of duress. Why hadn’t Gansey been enough to provide the same for Ronan?

Although they fought, their little group was inseparable, had been since before they even got to school. And now Ronan wouldn’t come to mealtimes, wouldn’t look him in the eyes during the classes he actually attended. Gansey rarely saw him in the dorm as well — he’d been coming and going at odd hours that Gansey could never keep up with. 

The first Gryffindor Quidditch practice of the second term occurred on an icy Tuesday. Gansey put in his contacts so he wouldn’t have to worry about charming his glasses not to fog up, and he put on his special cold-weather practice suit to insulate him against the high-altitude wind. He took a few deep breaths. Success in team sports depended just as much on communication as it did on skill; Ronan couldn’t avoid Gansey any longer if he wanted to win the cup. Gansey wondered if Ronan cared about that anymore. 

As Gansey strolled down to the practice field with a script in his head to say to his best friend, he noticed that Slytherin was just finishing up their own practice. Gansey didn’t realize there was such high demand for practice slots in dreadful weather, but he observed their last few plays while the rest of the Gryffindors suited up and lugged the equipment out. Only a few players remained on the field as the rest of the Slytherins changed, but the Slytherins were to play Ravenclaw first, and their tactics led Gansey to believe it would be a close, fierce game. 

Eventually, as the Slytherins headed towards the Great Hall for a late dinner, Gansey poked his head into the boys’ locker room to get an idea of who actually arrived on time. Only Ronan was in there, pulling on his jersey in jerkish motions. For a second, Gansey believed Ronan to be alone, but from around the wall of lockers slid Kavinsky with a sly expression constricting his features. 

“You can say whatever you wanna say,” Kavinsky remarked. “But it won’t change the truth.”

Ronan barked out a laugh, a foreign and humorless noise to Gansey’s ears. Gansey crouched behind the door. He wasn’t spying; he was simply concerned. 

“What do you know about the truth?” Ronan spat.

“I know that you sought  _ me  _ out. What does Dick always say? Oh right — ‘coincidence’ because he doesn’t believe in them. Was this a coincidence? You and me, the only greywarens at this school?”

“I should ask you the same thing.”

“And I should ask you if you’re just using me to feel closer to your father.”

Gansey watched Ronan’s fists clench up, his eyes dart to the wand lying next to his practice bag on the bench beside him. Gansey wanted to intervene, he could sense his hand instinctively go for his wand — but Ronan would never forgive him for fighting his fight for him. 

Ronan was gearing up to swing, and he did, but Kavinsky was fast, and he dove away. Ronan’s hand collided with the cold metal of a locker door, and the grey exterior of the locker was now painted in red. The resulting bang vibrated around in a fifty foot radius, and Gansey jumped back, stood around the corner from the door because he recognized that this argument was simmering down and didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire. Ronan swore at the pain, and Kavinsky just laughed. 

“Oh, go fuck yourself, Kavinsky.” Never before had Gansey ever heard so much venom in Ronan’s voice. He knew that his friend could be a little aggressive and offputting, but that was more of a self-fulfilling prophecy caused by people ignorant of his abilities. This was different, and this was scary. 

“That’s another thing you’re using me for.” Ronan just marinated in his anger, and though he could no longer see him, Gansey could  _ feel  _ it. Gansey had always been attuned to supernatural vibrations, and right now, Kavinsky and Ronan’s combined energies most reminded Gansey of the bits and pieces of dark magic he’d indirectly witnessed — the necromancy book at the secondhand shop along Diagon, particularly graphic lessons in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Noah’s retelling of the day his friend murdered him. 

Now, Ronan wasn’t reacting anymore, just staring Kavinsky down, relentless and unforgiving. Kavinsky didn’t seem affected by Ronan’s glare, and he just sauntered out, saying, “See you in your dreams tonight, Lynch.”

~

“You haven’t seen Ronan today, have you?” Blue asked Adam as she slid next to him at a table in the library. “I didn’t think too much of it when he wasn’t in DADA the other day, but he wasn’t in class today either.”

Adam, in fact, hadn’t seen Ronan, and he told her as much. He kept his voice low. “I do know that he didn’t want to return to school so soon. But Declan made him, and he needed to be there for Matthew.”

“I think Gansey mentioned something about Quidditch practice today. Do you think he showed up?” 

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

What Adam wanted to say that none of this was surprising — the boy just lost his father. And if there was one thing Adam had learned in the past several years, it was how much of a difference a close family relationship can make. He imagined that Ronan felt in the absence of his father the way Adam felt in the presence of his. 

“I mean — I saw him on the train with Kavinsky and if  _ that’s  _ his coping mechanism —”

“You’re just as bad as Gansey.” If they hadn’t been in the library, it would have been a shouted accusation, but here it just came out as a furious whisper. Adam closed his textbook and looked her in the eye. She stared back.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Is it suddenly not my business when my best friend is inviting danger into his bed?”

“You think Ronan’s sleeping with Kavinsky?”

“What else do you call this? Kavinsky’s been flirting with him for, like, two years, yes? At this point it’s a fixation.”

And that struck Adam speechless. It wasn’t that he’d never considered Kavinsky’s strange interest in Ronan; he’d just been preoccupied with his own relationship with Blue, and with analyzing every glance Ronan sent his way. 

“I don’t think —” Adam didn’t know how to say it. “If Ronan’s been around Kavinsky lately, it’s not… for romantic or sexual reasons. This is  _ Ronan _ we’re talking about. He doesn't do anything casual or halfway. Besides, as far as I know, Ronan has his sights set… elsewhere.” And he tried to keep his voice steady, but he couldn’t help the blush that crept up his face. 

Blue raised her eyebrows but said nothing. She gazed at the sheet of notes Adam had been taking for potions, and when she reached the end of the page, she looked back up at Adam. “We haven’t spent that much time alone since…” She trailed off, but it wasn’t difficult for Adam to fill in the pieces. “How are  _ you  _ holding up?”

Adam had cared for Niall, not entirely on a personal level, but symbolically. He’d been grieving the ambiguous loss of his parents for years, and this wasn’t too different. Blue rubbed his shoulder, a gesture of empathy and support, but Adam flinched away from the touch. Instantly, Blue knew what this meant, and she furrowed her brows. “You could have stayed at Fox Way. You didn’t have to go back home,” she said. 

“It was good to catch up with them,” he lied. “I did some odd jobs for the neighbors, made a little money for textbooks.”

“Adam,” she said. He bit his lip and steeled himself to look up at her. There was no malice in her eyes. 

“I needed some time to myself. To think.”

“Okay,”  Blue relented.

They sat at the table, not looking at anything in particular or talking — they allowed each other a moment to just be. 

“Gansey has feelings for you.”

Blue toyed with the edge of her sleeve. She gave Adam a rueful little smile and said, “He’s not very subtle, is he?”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Look, Adam, this isn’t what I came here to talk about.” Adam wondered if that was true — if she really wasn’t, deep down, trying to acquire some sort of permission from him — or if she was just in denial. “I don’t want to argue. I want us to be friends again. Kavinsky is seriously messed up, he’s into some dark shit. I won’t let him take Ronan down with him. You and I — we need to get past this for his sake.”

Adam couldn’t deny that, but he also couldn’t deny that his heart still thudded when he thought of that day one month ago when Blue told him it wasn’t going to work out. Bile rose in his throat when he imagined Blue and Gansey together, but it also rose when he imagined Ronan and Kavinsky together, both for eternally different and similar reasons. He’d been in a good place, but now he couldn’t trust his instincts, his emotions. 

“You’re right,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on them. Just — don’t do anything drastic.”

~

It had only been a couple months since Blue had visited the Gryffindor common room, but already it had changed — or maybe she was just projecting. Gansey would sometimes hold secret meetings in the corner closest to the fireplace, and it was always frenzy when they gathered together in such a way, but most of the time they’d managed to focus their conversations on Glendower. They’d spent many summers exploring the terrain surrounding their hometowns, but for all its secrets and hidden treasures, Hogwarts as a campus was isolating and oppressing in this quest. Gansey adored reading, but even he was frustrated by the limits of research without access to the internet, and his initial stage of adjustment had been amusing to witness. 

Blue wasn’t doing anything wrong or even clandestine, so she didn’t know why her blood ran hot as she trekked up to the Gryffindor tower. She wasn’t dating Gansey, nor was she sleeping with him, but still this felt like the walk of shame. They hadn’t even made plans to hang out this afternoon; their meetings, just the two of them, weren’t dates, she thought. Or maybe the fact that she wasn’t sure was a red flag. Blue didn’t know how categorize Gansey in her head, but whatever they were headed to felt like a betrayal to the rest of the group. To Adam. And Adam was no longer her boyfriend, but she was still in love with him in the way she was in love with all of her best friends. 

Every step of the way, she fought with herself, longing to do this in a manner that didn’t feel surreptitious. But she forged onward because it was all in her head. She’d asked an underclass Gryffindor what the password was, and he’d told her without hesitation. Many of the students, even those too young to know her personally, thought nothing of it when she showed up in a common room or rendezvous point that wasn’t her own, because _ that’s just Sargent she’s probably looking for her boys.  _

The lights were shut off in the sixth year boys’ dorm, which wasn’t a good sign. Gansey easily could have been in the dorm or out — it was just a matter of chance, really. Blue crept inside, and it appeared empty, so she made to leave. Then she heard a loud, sudden snore from the furthest bunk, and it sounded like Ronan’s snore, actually, so she tiptoed towards the bed to investigate. Sure enough, Ronan was curled up like a puppy, wrapped in a fraying blanket Matthew had once made him for Christmas.  _ Peaceful  _ was rarely a word applicable to Ronan Lynch; even as a young boy, he’d been too frenetic to come off as calm. But now, in spite of the grief, the anger, here he was, napping at two on a Sunday afternoon. Blue wondered if he was dreaming.

That Ronan would even be in here had never crossed Blue’s mind. It was assumed every Sunday that the Lynch brothers spent their mornings and occasionally their afternoons with Hogwarts’ Catholic Club, a coalition of students brought together to perform worship services and somehow reconcile their mystical faith with their magical reality. Ronan was just never accessible on Sundays at this time of day. His faith, in fact, had been his one redeeming quality to those who believed, without irony, the middle Lynch to be soulless. 

Blue had heard the whispers, they all had, and on the days when her faith in humanity was low, she would level her peers with death glares and retort back. Maybe she was more sensitive to it because her family was trained in divination, which was still considered pseudo-magic in certain circles, but it blew her mind that Ronan could be shunned at a magic school for simply being proficient in a rare form of magic. 

It eased Blue’s mind to see him this way. It was true she hadn’t seen much of him since the funeral, but that was understandable, and if time away was what he needed to heal, then so be it. Blue was never going to push him into anything he wasn’t ready for, but she did miss him, so she allowed herself a moment just to observe. Before long, her eyes wandered, and she caught sight of a book placed on Ronan’s bedside table. 

Blue didn’t pick it up, fearful that she wouldn’t be able to return it to the table in its careless position, but she did flip through it.  _ Necromancy and the Wizard: A Comprehensive Education _ was its title, and it wasn’t a library book, but if it was, it clearly would have resided in the restricted section. Necromancy. Blue glanced back to Ronan’s sleeping figure, and when he did not stir, she left the room as quickly as possible. Images from the tome were branded in her vision: pictures of witch hunts and the Deathly Hallows and dug-up graves. Her light-headedness was so debilitating that she tripped over her own feet whilst exiting the common room. 

Ronan was a pure-blood, so surely he had grown up with all the stories from  _ The Tales of Beedle the Bard _ . He knew the fates of the Peverell brothers, so why would he even consider this? Perplexed, Blue opened the portrait door and stepped into the corridor, only to find Gansey on his way in. 

“Jane!” he said. “What are you doing up here?”

“Looking for you,” she replied, and grimaced, thinking of the strange turn of events. “Ronan is in there sleeping,” she added.

Gansey raised his eyebrows. 

Blue brought Gansey back into the empty common room, out of earshot from all the nosy paintings in the corridor, and explained what she had just seen. 

“I think — this book sounds familiar. I must’ve seen it somewhere. Maybe in my Glendower research?”   


“I don’t know, Gansey. This is some  _ dark  _ magic.”

“What did the cover look like?” 

Gansey nodded thoughtfully as Blue recounted the silver gilded edges, the deep red font, the intricate symbolism. 

“Well, it can’t be his book,” Gansey said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I would have remembered if I saw him with it previously.”

“And you’re sure he didn’t buy it more recently? Or dream it? Really, you —”

“Diagon Alley!”

Dumbfounded, Blue just stared. 

“That creepy secondhand shop.  _ That’s  _ where I saw it before.” He frowned. “But that was years ago.”

Blue gave Gansey another questioning look, and he elaborated. “It was my first time at Diagon Alley, the summer before first year. This was shortly before Adam and I had met the Lynches.” Gansey hesitated, recalling that first day at the Barns, all the magic, all of Niall’s charisma. “Mum had taken me up, and after we bought all of my supplies, I somehow found myself in this secondhand shop — this tiny storefront shoved in the corner closest to Knockturn Alley. I don’t even know  _ how  _ I ended up in there. This book — it seemed to be calling to me.”

“That’s not a good sign,” Blue muttered. 

“No,” Gansey agreed. “Anyway, mum found me before anything could happen. But as I was leaving, I remember the cashier staring me down. It was quite peculier. He was just so… gray. Occasionally I think about that day and what would have happened if I’d stayed longer in there. I have half a mind to believe I would’ve been transported someplace, like Harry Potter was at the end of the Triwizard Tournament.”

Blue rolled her eyes. “I think that’s a little dramatic, Gansey.” But her heart wasn’t in it, and her mind was elsewhere. 

“Anyway, are you hungry? I was planning on getting my Latin textbook so I could head to the library after I eat. I can try to  _ covertly  _ peek at the book while I’m in the room.”

Blue agreed and sat down on a plushy couch in the common room to wait. 

A few minutes later, they walked side-by-side down to the Great Hall, Gansey reciting Latin vocabulary words and Blue listening in. Latin was such an integral aspect to the boys’ friendship that of course she knew the basics by now, but she eagerly let Gansey explain to her more advanced concepts. 

“Yo! Gansey boy! Blue bear!” 

Halfway down from the Gryffindor tower, Henry Cheng raced up to them. He hugged them both urgently, as if he wanted to speed up time but still show them he cared. 

“I just came from the library.” He gestured to his messenger bag, filled with textbooks. “But RoboBee has been erratic today. It’s got me chasing it all of the place.”   


“RoboBee?” Blue inquired. It sounded familiar. Maybe Henry had mentioned it in passing once. 

“I’ve been trying to work out the kinks.” Henry removed a bit of parchment from a folder in his bag and turned it to face Blue and Gansey. A rushed but somehow elegant figure of a wasp was drawn in the center, surrounded by little notes and auxiliary diagrams. 

“I thought electronics didn’t work at Hogwarts?” Gansey furrowed his brows.

“Sure,” Henry replied, not fazed in the least. “But RoboBee runs on magic. Built electronically, just the same way an iPhone is, but powered through magic, not electric charge.”

“But that’s preposterous!” Blue said, and now Gansey was more focused on her vocabulary than the conversation at hand. “Magic is channeled through  _ people _ . It’s not just floating around, like… like some sort of invisible particle in the air!” 

“Well, yes, theoretically that’s correct,” Henry explained. “Think of it like a wand. A wand can’t do anything without a wizard or witch on the other end, right?”

Blue considered that. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.” 

“Gansey here told me about his Glendower woes the last time we were in detention together. Once the prototype is updated, I should be able to help. Let’s meet up after dinner and I’ll go over the details with you.”

Gansey nodded sagely and Blue broke out in a grin. She had considered bringing Henry onto the Glendower Investigation Squad (as she had named it) but hadn’t gotten around to consulting the others due to the drama of late. 

“Later, lovebirds,” Henry called as he sprinted up a staircase. 

Gansey frowned as Blue shouted profanities in Henry’s wake. “Do you think…?” Gansey started quietly. 

“Come on, Gansey.” Blue laughed. “I’m hungry.”


	3. BEGINNING

Adam sat in the library, working on homework as always. It wasn't that he loved to study as much as he did, but his work study gig was only good if he kept his grades up. Hogwarts, thank Merlin, had free tuition, but no students were permitted to hold jobs off the school grounds. Adam, as well as a handful of other students, performed odd jobs for the administration. Now that he was of working age, Adam no longer received financial support from his mother. He’d paid back every penny he owed her, and now, every penny he made went to textbooks, school supplies, and if he was lucky, a little savings account in Gringotts. 

He only had about forty minutes to finish this reading before he had to report to the kitchens, but Adam just could not concentrate. His mind kept wandering to Ronan. Last week Adam had an embarrassingly sexy dream about Ronan, one that had distracted him for days in his guilt and pleasure. This was not that. Adam was worried about Ronan, but he didn't know what to do about it. 

His conversation with Blue kept replaying in his mind. None of their friends had ever remotely liked Kavinsky: he was a skeezy drug dealer who was probably more dangerous than any of them could imagine. When he’d first started paying attention to Ronan, all of them had been wary and overly protective, but that did nothing but piss Ronan off. He was a big boy who could take care of himself, after all. Until he couldn't. 

Adam hoped Blue wouldn't do anything foolish. Ronan was quickly headed down a dark hole, yes. But confrontation was never a good idea when it came to him. They had to be strategic about this. Surely Blue understood this; she'd known Ronan far longer than any of the rest of them had. 

Adam gave up on his reading. He’d gotten most of it done, and if he woke up half an hour early tomorrow, he’d have time to finish and look over his notes. 

He found himself wandering through the bookshelves, creeping dangerously close to the restricted section. It wouldn't be difficult to sneak in. He’d done it before, multiple times, and he was the only one in the library right now. Even Madam Pince was out — she was leading a seminar for underclassmen or something. It was still too early in the semester for the library to be really packed with students frantically working on assignments, so it was an ideal time. 

Adam glanced around the library one more time and stepped into the restricted section. He would have to be quick. When he or his friends had snuck in previously, they’d focused on keywords related to Glendower, necromancy, and mythologies of the British Isles. They’d made great progress over the years, but still they did not know exactly why Gansey had been chosen — or if it had been random chance. 

The night before, when Adam, Gansey, and Blue had met up with Henry to discuss the potential benefits of the Robobee, Blue had filled him in on the strange necromancy book she’d found next to Ronan’s bed. Adam had left with a million questions, and now, he hoped to find some answers. 

The section on necromancy was small. The last time Adam had been in here, he could only find books about the Deathly Hallows. Clearly, necromancy was one of the darkest magics one could dabble in. The crew had determined years ago that Gansey’s particular situation had nothing to do with the Deathly Hallows because individuals reanimated via the Resurrection Stone were never themselves. Gansey, however, was himself — it was as if he’d never died. 

Adam saw a slim grey book at the very end of the necromancy section one so small Adam could barely make out the text on the spine. Ley Lines and the Resurrected Individual. It was a completely theoretical look at the potential effects of ley lines written by one Roger Mallory. The familiar name was a sign to Adam. After hastily sticking it in his bag, Adam bolted from the restricted section, and in the safety of a secluded corner in the library, he began to flip through it. 

Roger Mallory was a professor and researcher based in England. Gansey had taken a summer class with him a couple years before, and he was obsessed with this guy. Adam had to wonder why Gansey didn’t know about this essay already. Nevertheless, he read on, twenty minutes to spare. A passage from the subsection “The Road of Life and Death” stuck out to Adam. The heading reminded Adam of the Corpse Road that Maura Sargent had once spoken of. 

Ley lines, in their most essential form, are pure passageways of energy. They run all over the world, intersecting with the sites of history’s greatest supernatural events. Ley lines are life. Ley lines are death. 

And then, in “The Inherent Instability of Resurrection Magic”: The only resurrection magic that is successful is one that deals with ley lines. All others fail. The Resurrection Stone of the Deathly Hallows attempts to reanimate a corpse independently of all life around it. This will never work because it is something akin to creating a zombie. In order to perform seamless necromancy, one must begin at the very avenue of life itself. Work with ley lines is foundational magic, and it is only such a pure magic that can rewrite the rules of nature.

Goosebumps rose on Adam’s skin. This was it, it had to be. This had to be Gansey’s answer, and it had to be related to that book on Ronan’s nightstand. The pieces of the puzzle were aligning perfectly. But below that awareness was a prickling deep in Adam’s subconscious, a hum his magic was harmonizing with. It was like he’d received the answer to a question he didn't know he'd asked. It was impossible to articulate or wrap his head around, but for now it was enough to know that maybe it would help him with Ronan.

~

Ronan awoke to strange sounds and smells and a general feeling of uneasiness. He was sure he had gone to bed with Matthew curled up in his arms, but now he was alone. Ronan reluctantly got up to investigate his surroundings. He was groggy with a pounding headache in the back of his skull. Ronan had been far too drunk enough times to know he was hungover from something. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Ronan gazed around, searching for something that could help him identify where he was or why he was there. 

First of all, he wasn’t at Hogwarts. That was clear from the plain decor. Hogwarts took a maximalist approach to decorating: all of the portraits on the walls and candlelit corridors projected a cozy feeling. Here, a bed lay in the corner, a dresser next to it. There was no other furniture, and the closet was empty. 

Ronan pulled the blackout curtains aside, but homogenous suburbs was all that was visible through the window. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he didn’t find it. He closed his eyes, settled his breathing, and tried to project his hearing out as far as he could. 

“If I had known you would have been so useless, I would have gotten rid of you months ago!” It was a hushed whispering, but the voice sounded distinctly like Professor Greenmantle. Ronan was immediately suspicious. Greenmantle had been eyeing Ronan up and down since he stepped foot on Hogwarts’ campus. 

Greenmantle continued, “I will deal with you later, Joseph.” Ronan almost choked. “Why don’t you check on our friend in the basement? I have heard rustling in Mr. Lynch’s room, so I believe he has woken from the sedation. Piper will be thrilled!”

Ronan’s head was still reeling from whatever Greenmantle had drugged him with. He just couldn’t remove a singular image from his mind: K, tracing his finger down Ronan’s arm two days prior. Ronan still felt the touch, feather light and antithetical to everything Kavinsky was. Ronan had never been in love with Kavinsky, but things were much more complicated than that. 

He had to get out of there. He needed to get out of there. 

The door opened, and Greenmantle stepped in, looking as polished as ever. When he saw Ronan, he smiled, a warm, almost pitiful thing. “I'd like to welcome you to my home, Mr. Lynch. Of course, ignore the furnishings. This house is a new acquisition and with our work schedules Piper and I have not yet had the time to decorate.”

Ronan remained silent, wondering if this was all a joke. Of all the thoughts passing through his mind, most prominent was the fact that he'd never been in any of his professors’ houses.

“I'm terribly sorry to hear about your father’s passing.” Ronan sneered at him. “Niall was truly gifted. But, as I hear, so are you.”

Ronan stayed silent. Niall had taught him long ago to be cautious about the way he spoke about his abilities. When Ronan was eleven and he revealed his dreams to Adam, it had felt reckless. Then again, it’d also felt certain, but that was all Adam. 

“Of course, your friend Joseph has many gifts as well. But Mr. Kavinsky is not… restrained. As I’m sure you know, he is lavish. It is better to have him on my side, but I always knew he was not what I was looking for. The trouble with magical artefacts that are living, especially ones that are human, is that they have too much of their own free will. Joseph did lead me to you, however, so I suppose he earned his keep.”

“It’s too bad I’ll never dream for you, isn’t it?”

Greenmantle waved his hand like he was airing out smoke from a campfire. (Ronan wanted to toss him into a campfire.) “Save your idle threats for later. I should be a proper host and show you around. There’s someone downstairs I have a feeling you will be eager to meet.”

“Who? Merlin?”

“Ah, very funny. You see, I think you’ll be a good friend for Dean. The hit man profession just seems to suck the humor out of a person, don’t you think?”

At this, Ronan’s blood ran cold. He took the bait. “What did you do?” he whispered, thinking up several ways he could kill Greenmantle with his bare hands.

“It's not about what we did, it's about what you can do.”

“What is it that you want? Eternal riches? An army of clones to keep you from getting lonely at night?” 

Greenmantle shook his head. “I have enough money. No, I'm more interested in the bigger picture. And as for the latter, well, that’s what I have Piper for.”

Ronan grimaced at the thought of Greenmantle and his wife, together in bed. 

“Now, you're more special than Joseph, and you're more special than your poor late father. Your value not only lies in your abilities, but also in your connections. Your friends.”

“What have you done to them?”

“Oh, nothing. But they're a peculiar set, aren't they? Blue Sargent’s mother is a psychic, Richard Gansey was resurrected, and Adam Lynch has an emerging relationship with energy lines. And then you. All useful.” Ronan frowned. He’d known Adam was special, more than just an average wizard. He’d known that since the first day they met. But he didn't even think Adam knew what was going on with his magic. 

“Anyway, I bet you're hungry. There’s foie gras downstairs. I have a staff meeting I can’t get out of, so we shall discuss the first stages of experimentation when I return. And don't attempt escape. Even in your wildest dreams you wouldn't have the advanced magical knowledge to do so. Just remember you are my guest, my partner in this groundbreaking magical research. You are being afforded all the pleasures and freedom I would allow any of my other colleagues, but that is strictly dependent on your cooperation.” Greenmantle looked pleased with his innuendo, though he had to know out of sheer common sense that Ronan had heard dream jokes his whole life and was frankly tired of them. 

Ronan raced out of the room. He didn't know how long he would have. He didn't have much of an appetite, but he couldn't brainstorm a plan before paying a visit to Greenmantle’s other houseguest. 

At the kitchen table sat a man, a man that looked quite familiar, somehow, even though Ronan had never seen him before. He walked up and demanded, “Did you kill my father?”

The man looked quite startled and nearly choked on his foie gras. He didn't respond, and that was enough confirmation. Ronan growled, leapt up. 

“Why? What do you get out of all of this? You're no less of a coward than he is.”

The man looked down at his plate, dejected. “This job was never an easy one. I've been trying to get out, make an honest living, but I just keep getting roped in.”

“Why should I feel sympathy for you?”

The man sobered. “You shouldn't. But Colin and Piper’s plans are sinister. I've done awful things, but they're the monsters.”

“Do tell — what is so much worse than murder in cold blood?” Ronan’s eyes glistened as he spoke, but he repressed the tears. So much for the menacing approach. 

The man, the very grey man, was taken aback, startled that Ronan did not know. “They’re trying to bring back Voldemort,” he said, as if Ronan was was a child and this was obvious information. 

“They — what?”

“What did you think Colin wanted to use your dreams for? He thought, at first, maybe it was you who brought your friend back to life, but the timelines didn't match up. Besides, once I did some digging, it was clear that Noah Czerny, one of the Hogwarts ghosts, was indirectly responsible. Ley lines and all that. Minor setback, but Colin is still convinced that you can dream up He Who Shall Not Be Named. Just might take some practice and fine tuning.” 

All this new information had Ronan’s head reeling. Voldemort, Noah — it was too much. He shook his head, tried to understand. 

“And you're just, what? His partner in crime? His complicit servant?”

“I do some of the dirty work, yes. I don't agree with their mission, and I've been trying to change professions, but Colin has leverage. Do you think I would be telling you this if I wanted them to succeed?” 

All Ronan could think about was his father rotting in a grave thanks to the asshole sitting before him, so he left the question unanswered and returned to the bedroom he awoke in. There would be time to explore, but right now he needed to tap into whatever psychic frequencies he could find. Ronan closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep, willed himself to dream. 

He was alone in Cabeswater, alone with the trees, alone with his mind. He longed to be forgiven by his friends. He longed for Adam — Adam whom he loved in every sense of the word. Adam who laughed at Ronan’s macabre humor when no one else did. Adam who understood him better than anyone thanks to some unknown, unspoken connection. He was cold in this forest but he could feel Adam and just hoped he wasn’t making it up. Adam was warm in his soul. For years Ronan had been ashamed and regretful about his feelings for Adam, but maybe it might do him some good right now. Maybe it was destiny that he had fallen for the most magical boy he had ever met. Maybe that was part of it. 

Ronan prayed. Despite the murderer downstairs and the doomsday ideology of his capturer, if Adam heard him, Ronan knew he would be okay. 

~

“Morning,” Blue said to the group with a yawn, yogurt cup and spoon in hand. 

Gansey, Adam, and Henry each acknowledged her presence while nursing the caffeinated beverage of their choice. The empty classroom was warm with the scents of coffee and chai despite the winter chill. Gansey was just as sleepy as the rest of them, but his curiosity and excitement overpowered his urge to take a little nap there on Blue’s shoulder. “You must have made great progress to call us here at eight on a Saturday morning, Adam.”

Adam nodded in response, flipping through pages in the book he’d borrowed from the Restricted Section and marking them to keep the page.

“I shouldn’t have stayed at that Ravenclaw common room party so late last night,” Henry complained. “When I woke up, I was tempted to take another shot so at least I wouldn’t be hungover.”

“Oh, here.” Blue produced a vial of shimmering green liquid from her robes pocket. “I managed to sneak a little of this off a couple partygoers as they were preparing a batch before the party. Should do the trick.” She handed the potion to Henry, who downed it in one gulp and immediately looked refreshed. It was a simple wellness aid, but amongst rowdy teenage wizards it was known as a fairly decent hangover cure. Blue was not a partier, but she was fiercely protective of her friends’ wellbeing, which was convenient for Henry at the moment. 

Adam was eager to change the subject. “I suppose you all know why I’ve gathered you here today,” he began. “I know we’ve all been thinking of hosting an intervention for Ronan, but there is one problem: he’s not at Hogwarts.”

Gansey frowned. “I swear I saw him in potions class the other day. I wanted to say something to him but he was partnered up with Kavinsky and I figured I’d get him after class. He disappeared before I could.”

Everyone took turns discussing when the last time they’d seen Ronan, and while he wasn’t seen around the school much in general, no one had spotted him since Thursday. “I woke up early that day and saw him curled up with Matthew on one of the couches in the common room,” Gansey said. No one could offer up a more recent time they’d passed him in the corridor or spotted him out the window talking with Matthew.

Adam produced a large folded parchment. “The Marauders’ Map! I’d been wondering where that had gotten to!” Henry exclaimed.

The Marauder’s Map changed hands often at Hogwarts, switching from careful partygoers to questing students looking to sneak around with ease. It was stuff of legend at Hogwarts, but the gang had always found ways to retrieve it when needed.

“I looked last night, and when I woke this morning, but he’s nowhere on this map.”

“And neither is Joseph Kavinsky,” Blue noted.

Adam nodded.

“Do you think they ran away together? Or that Kavinsky took him somewhere?”

“I don’t know, to be honest. A few months ago he never would’ve been the type to get involved with Kavinsky….” Adam still believed in Ronan despite his better judgement, and he knew that Gansey and Blue did too. He so desperately wanted to say Ronan would still make the right decisions, but recent events proved otherwise. “Anyway, I think it has something to do with this.” Adam read them lines from the book about resurrection and ley line energy.

“His father,” Gansey said, and realization dawned on them. 

“Surely Ronan has to be smart enough not to… to try….” Blue couldn’t say it.

“I don’t know, Blue. Grief changes people. The Ronan we were best friends with doesn’t exist anymore, just like Ronan as he was in third year doesn’t exist anymore.”

Henry didn’t really know what to contribute to the conversation since he was never that close with Lynch, but now he spoke up. “I think I know how to find him.”

The rest of them stared at him, questioning, and he opened his palm. He had been toying with it under the table. “I finished the prototype of RoboBee. Maybe we can head up to the Gryffindor dorms to find a magical frequency for it to latch on?”

“Actually…” Adam started. “I may have a better solution.” He cleared his throat, trying to conceptualize the abstract experience he’d had. “It was yesterday, around five in the afternoon. I was in the Slytherin common room working on a Divination assignment, and all of a sudden I just felt this warmth spreading from my heart to my head. And I felt Ronan’s presence, like he was sitting next to me. I’m sure I didn’t make it up — it felt too real. I think he was trying to tell me something.” 

Adam didn’t mention that the night before he’d dreamt of kissing Ronan again. As the rest of the group digested the full meaning of what Adam said, he reflected on that. In the dream, Ronan and Adam were in the Slytherin common room, on the same couch Adam had been on when the feeling overcame him. They were awfully close, but he could tell they both wanted to be closer. In this dream world, they must’ve been dating, because when Adam kissed Ronan, it lacked the gentleness of a first kiss. It was passion and adoration and lust, everything Adam theorized Ronan would bring to a kiss. It was everything Adam wanted and everything he never thought he would ever get. But that was neither here nor there. 

Adam took the RoboBee from Henry. He didn’t know how this thing worked, but he figured intuition was the way to go. Adam cupped the device in his hands and closed his eyes. He concentrated on Ronan. The message in the common room, the grief he’d held since December, the special connection they had. It was never explicitly stated in Adam’s research, but he knew that Hogwarts was positioned on a ley line. He could feel it, and he could feel the ley lines leading him to Ronan. 

Adam opened his eyes, and everyone was staring at him. RoboBee was hot to the touch, so he set it down on the table. Trying not to feel awkward and different, Adam gestured to the RoboBee. “I think it knows where to go.”

Gansey looked at Adam in awe. “Adam, you never cease to amaze me.” 

RoboBee began to glow with blue light. Blue reached out to touch it, but Henry stopped her. “I think it’s turned into a portkey.”

Blue grinned and squeezed Gansey’s hand from under the table. “Come on. Let's go get our friend back.”

~

Ronan dreamed. And dreamed. It wasn’t unusual for him, but he didn’t know what else to do. He’d snuck into the building’s main work room after he sent his message to Adam, but he didn’t have the time to find anything substantial without proving his betrayal to Greenmantle. He had no plan, so he dreamed. 

In the work room, there had been a number of magical artefacts. If what the man who Greenmantle called Dean said was true, it made sense that Greenmantle was collecting anything he could get his hands on that might be of some use. Ronan recalled what Greenmantle had told him the day before: Blue Sargent’s mother is a psychic, Richard Gansey was resurrected, and Adam Lynch has an emerging relationship with energy lines. And then you. All useful. Ronan and his friends — if he could still call them that — were not people to Greenmantle. They were objects. And if all that mattered was Ronan’s dreams, well, he would dream.

Ronan didn’t exactly know what he was doing. He had a few ideas: cages, weapons, even a sort of homing beacon for the Ministry of Magic to come and arrest Greenmantle. He was torn. Half of him wanted to rip out Greenmantle’s entrails and feed them to some dreamt-up bird of prey. Half of him wanted old school justice, with Greenmantle behind bars. Ronan was trying to convince himself that killing Greenmantle wouldn’t make them equal in the eyes of God. Greenmantle and his associate had stolen almost everything that was important to Ronan: his father, his perfect family life, his friends, his happiness. Ronan wanted so desperately to make him suffer in just the same way. But he just couldn’t kill. He knew it in his soul that even if he tried, he wouldn’t be able to do it. He didn’t know if that made him weak or strong but he tried to think of other plans nonetheless. 

Ronan dreamt up many things. There was a raven the size of an ostrich. It looked menacing but sat in the corner quietly; it wouldn’t attack its creator. There were weapons of all types, just in case. Ronan’s favorite was the crossbow that shot arrows at a rate faster than the human eye could see. A torch of fire that only extinguished at Ronan’s command, and a sconce to store it. Unbreakable rope. Lastly, he dreamt up a portal to Cabeswater. This intrigued him the most, because he didn’t know that was possible. At one point, Ronan stuck his arm through it and fell asleep, just to verify in his dream that the portal actually led to Cabeswater and not, like, the Great Hall at school. 

Ronan didn’t have much time to marvel over his own creations because soon after he dreamt the portal, his friends were standing in the room. Ronan might’ve still been in shock from the whole situation, and this did not help. He blinked really hard, but when he opened his eyes, Adam, Blue, Gansey, and Henry fucking Cheng were still standing before him. They were taking in their surroundings as well.

Ronan pointed at Henry and asked, “Why is he here?” at the same time Gansey asked, “Why is there a giant raven in here?”

Blue promptly burst out laughing, but Ronan shushed her. He set a silencing charm on the room, then gestured for her to continue. Before she explained herself, she sat on the bed and enveloped Ronan in a giant hug. “We’ve all missed you so much,” she said. “Especially Adam,” she added, this time in his ear. 

Ronan blushed and he tried in vain to focus his attention on the story the rest of them were spinning before him. In the weeks before his father died, Ronan had been so sure that Adam reciprocated his feelings, even though Adam and Blue’s breakup had been recent. It had taken him a while to process this, and even after that, he was hesitant to make any moves for fear he would just be Adam’s rebound. Then everything changed, and Ronan didn’t know what to make of Blue’s comment. Even if Adam once did have feelings for Ronan, surely that couldn’t be the case anymore. It’s not like Ronan had treated him well lately anyway. 

“So, long story short…” Blue was saying, “Henry’s a genius with magical electronics, and his robotic bee tapped into whatever weird magical shit is going on with Adam, and it turned into a portkey!”

“I seem to have some new connection with ley lines of magical energy. I don’t know how, but I can feel them all around me, like a sixth sense. I’ve read about them, but I don’t understand how they work logistically. After today, I think I’ve got some experimenting to do. From what I understand, there’s some sort of connection between the ley lines and your Cabeswater.”

Ronan nodded. It confirmed what Greenmantle mentioned about Adam and lined up with years of feelings about Adam, both magical and romantic. 

“Besides the bird in the corner, there’s one thing I don’t understand,” Gansey started. “All the literature on ley lines points to a strong link between the lines and resurrection. I can’t help but worry you’re trying to bring your father back.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Ronan closed his eyes. They didn’t know the whole story, so he tried not to get angry at Gansey. “Please don’t bring him up, okay? That’s not what is going on.” Every fiber of Ronan hurt at the possibility. He took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and told the whole story. Greenmantle, the man named Dean downstairs, Voldemort — everything. 

“That’s him!” Gansey look at Blue. “The man from the shop in Diagon Alley. The Grey Man.”

“How do you know him?”

Gansey and Blue told Ronan the story of finding the book on necromancy at his bedside. Ronan could feel his cheeks warming, and he avoided looking at Adam. No, he and Kavinsky had never fooled around, but Ronan was guilty of feeling horny and reckless around him. Adam didn’t need to know that, though what Ronan felt for Kavinsky was so completely different from what he felt for Adam. “K came over that day. I was sleeping, but I guess he decided to stay and read. I’ve never seen that book you’re talking about; it wasn’t there when I woke up.” Ronan looked them each in the eye. “But if you think I was trying to bring my father back to life, you don’t know me at all.”

Henry really didn’t know Ronan that well, so he wouldn’t have been shocked either way. But for the rest of them, the comment stung. 

“Ronan… From the research Adam has done, resurrection via ley line is different from any other magic, like the Deathly Hallows or horcruxes. Adam, what was the phrasing?”

“In order to perform seamless necromancy, one must begin at the very avenue of life itself. Work with ley lines is foundational magic, and it is only such a pure magic that can rewrite the rules of nature,” Adam recited. He had read over those lines so frequently in the past forty-eight hours that it seemed they were permanently branded into his mind. 

“I don’t care how fucking effective it is. I’m not an idiot. Gansey, weren’t you always the one warning us that the theoretical is never the same as the applied? What do you think the fallout would be, if something went wrong? And who do you think I would be to play God like that?”

Adam wondered how it was possible that the guy who spent so much time around Kavinsky could be a better person than the rest of them. But that was just Ronan. 

“Okay, we can all say our apologies later, guys. Right now we should probably discuss what to do about the guy downstairs who literally wants to resurrect Voldemort!”

“Everybody grab a weapon and storm his workroom?” 

“We’re not killing him,” Ronan said, voice firm and decided. 

“No, you won’t be,” Greenmantle said, stepping into the room. “Mr. Lynch, if you're going to try and sneak around me to collude with your little friends, at least try something more interesting than a simple silencing charm.”

No one really knew what to do, so Blue shouted, “You're not going to get away with this!” 

“Oh, you kids are so dramatic. Yes, Piper’s plan is a bit shocking, I suppose. Really, I don't understand what all the fuss is about. Voldemort is a failed villain. But it's what Piper wants. My contribution was to practice necromancy so it would be utterly perfect when it matters. I figured, hey, if I can resurrect a middle-aged greywaren, I can resurrect a decrepit sorcerer way past his prime.”

The garage door to the house opened, rumbling under their feet. “That must be Piper. She was out early for a hair appointment, so she's likely home now for a mimosa and breakfast.”

They all listened in tense silence as Piper’s heels clicked on the hardwood floors. She arrived in perfect posture, her shiny hair blowing in the artificial wind of the ceiling fan. She looked like Evil Barbie with Colin as her Annoying Ken.

“Colin! You didn’t tell me we would be having this much company over!” Piper clapped her hands in delight, obviously distracted from the fact that she was showing all of these impressionable teenagers a beautiful home that was barely furnished. 

“So… what exactly do you get from reviving Voldemort? Come on, you can do better.” Ronan didn’t have much of his wits to him, so he was grateful to Adam for picking up the slack. That, and turned on. 

“It’s great fun. I love a good challenge! But I have work to do, so I must go.” Piper sauntered out of the room, and just as when she returned home, they couldn’t help but listen to her in awed and terrified silence. What none of them were expecting was a scream and the sound of a champagne glass shattering on the floor. Everyone rushed to the kitchen to witness the commotion, and there they saw the Grey Man with his wand outstretched and Piper Greenmantle with a nasty laceration on her foot. 

“If you were planning to Crucio me you could at least done it when I wasn’t wearing my new Louboutins! You’ve ruined them, and I was supposed to have hot yoga this evening!” Piper looked back at at her husband. “Colin, can I fire him already?”

Greenmantle made a sweeping gesture as to say “be my guest.” Despite the deep colors her foot was turning, Piper whipped out her wand, performed a ballerina pivot, and stuck the wand up against the Grey Man’s throat. 

“Killing you would be more satisfying, though.” 

Then: “Wait!” This came from Gansey, who, despite his own urge for Niall’s death to be avenged was becoming increasingly disgusted with the level of violence this quest was involving them in. Piper didn’t want to wait — her foot really throbbed — but she felt compelled to nonetheless. 

Greenmantle walked up to Gansey and examined him. “You must truly be gifted to have performed the Imperio curse wandless, just now.”

“I — I didn’t,” Gansey stammered, lacking his usual grace in his confusion. 

“No?” Greenmantle raised his eyebrows. They were, by the way, immaculately shaped. “My, my. It seems I was very lucky to get my hands on your abilities, then.”

“You’re not getting your hands on anyone’s abilities here!” Driven by a fit of rage, Blue aimed fast and punched Greenmantle in his stomach. Ideally, she would have gone for his nose, but she was a little too short for that punch. 

Immediately after, Henry followed up by shouting “stupefy!” to Greenmantle. He toppled to the floor. While Piper was distracted from the show in front of her, Adam shouted, “expelliarmus!” Ronan sent him a grin and caught Piper’s wand in his hand and pointed both hers and his at her. The Grey Man ran away, and the gang was too caught up in the action to hear the door slam behind him. 

“You know, if you kill me now, I won’t be able to bring him back. But you won’t do that,” Piper taunted. “You naive kids and your moral high ground.”

“You are correct,” Gansey responded, having regained his composure. “But we don’t have to kill you to stop you.”

Piper cackled. “What are you going to do, put a body-binding curse on me?”

That’s exactly what Ronan did. Blue raced upstairs to grab the unbreakable rope Ronan had dreamt up and together they tied up Colin and Piper Greenmantle to their expensive European dining room chairs. For good measure, they stupefied Piper because even though she posed no threat in her binds, she was still a little obnoxious. 

“So… now what are we gonna do with them?” Henry asked. 

Ronan gave Henry a dirty look, and Henry rolled his eyes. Then Ronan explained the purpose of all his dream objects lying on the bedroom floor. 

“And lastly,” Henry finished for Ronan, “a sparkly dildo.”

Adam, clearly annoyed, elbowed Henry in the ribs, and Ronan looked like he was in love. 

Gansey glanced between Ronan and Adam. Ronan’s affection for Adam had been present for a couple years, but now, something was changed. Ronan, despite his trauma, seemed more… open. Gansey shook his head to free the thoughts. It was something to think about, later. 

“I believe,” he enunciated, “the portal to Cabeswater is a fine idea.”

“It’s also really cool! I had no idea you could even dream something like that,” Blue added. 

“Are you comfortable with having them,” Adam jutted his chin to gesture at their captives, “in your dream world?”

Ronan shrugged. Cabeswater was a huge forest, after all. “I could make a barrier of some sort so they can’t escape and, like, use Cabeswater’s magic to wreck havoc.”

“What about a ring of that eternal fire?” Henry suggested.

Ronan's annoyed look was a default in his interactions with Cheng, but he had to admit that it was a pretty good idea. 

The five of them discussed the semantics, and made their way to the backyard. Holding the flaming torch, Adam looked eternal. The yard was quite charming, with perfectly manicured grass and a marble bird bath glittering in the late morning sun. Gansey could imagine his parents hosting brunch out there, or maybe a summertime barbecue. 

Blue, Gansey, Henry, and Adam claimed one robin’s egg blue bench, trying and failing to comfortably fit. The flame Adam kept was dangerously close to Henry’s hair, which he would not stop complaining about. Adam considered lighting his hair up just for the fun of it, but figured it wasn't the time for such shenanigans. Perhaps Ronan’s sudden entrance back into his life was making him a little reckless. 

Meanwhile, Ronan lied on the grass before them and closed his eyes. Now that he was aware of the possibilities, he didn't need the portal up in the bedroom. He slowed his breathing, willing himself to a calm sleep despite his rambunctious friends. Once in Cabeswater, he envisioned a portal just the same as the one before. He stretched his mind, and it grew and grew until it was large enough to fit the average suburban house. It could have swallowed Ronan up, if he weren't already in Cabeswater. In a flash, Ronan added a reverse-gravity suction because, hey, why not? It would make the job easier.

The rest of them watched with fascination, though all that was visible on the surface was a sleeping boy. He awoke with a jolt, and instantly a portal a hundred times the size of the original appeared in the sky, like someone had pushed a planet a little too close into Earth. The house began to shift upwards, separating from the foundation. A window broke off, and the ostrich-sized raven flew out, squawking loudly. Ronan felt ashamed for forgetting about it — he had a duty to all of his animate dream beings. The bird flew to his side, though, so he figured all was forgiven. 

Very, very carefully, Blue levitated the torch in the air. It rose slowly but surely, and everyone else held their wands up to spot her. Soon enough, the torch lit up the outer rim of the portal, washing the neighborhood in yellow heat. By that time, the house was rising high, and all at once it vanished into the white February sky, leaving just an empty lot and a blue bench. 

Someone sighed in relief, or maybe all of them. They all looked at each other blankly. There would be time to debrief, time to repair broken friendships. For now, they were mostly concerned with getting home. Henry fished the RoboBee from his cloak pocket, and Adam wordlessly connected them back to Hogwarts. Having missed this special trick the first time around, Ronan was entranced. Adam seemed comfortable in this new power already. Ronan made a mental note to ask him about it. 

When they arrived it was only lunchtime, and they all went their separate ways to unpack the events in the mind. Blue made her way up to the astronomy tower; Henry took an aromatic bath in the Prefect’s bathroom; Gansey headed out to the lake, cold but bundled; Adam to the Shrieking Shack, because it always helped him think; and Ronan flew around the empty Quidditch field, letting the cold freeze his outsides and warm his insides. They would join once again, in due time. 

~

Adam found Ronan in the owlery, tending to the one giant black bird amongst a myriad of brown speckled owls. In his hands, he clutched the day’s issue of The Daily Prophet, and he was nervous, a little. It had been a week since the incident with the Greenmantles, and they were all readjusting to their age-old friendship. Henry now hung out with them more, which seemed inevitable, after. Ronan and Adam returned to their banter quickly enough, but they hadn't spent time alone, hadn't talked. They both recognized that feeling of having everything and nothing to say. It was too much; there was so much ground to cover, and they didn't know where to start.

Ronan gave Adam a small smile in greeting but said nothing. 

“Have you named it?” Adam sat on the dusty floor and Ronan followed suit. They watched the birds and each other.

Ronan nodded, a silly grin warping his face. “Chainsaw.”

Adam shook his head and smiled. He was surprised that Pureblood Ronan even knew what chainsaws were, but Adam figured that was part of the charm, because many of their classmates would not. 

“And they’re letting you keep it?”

Ronan shrugged. “I think McGonagall is being lenient with me, considering.”

They lapsed into a minute of comfortable silence, both marveling in genuine awe the path that their lives had taken in the past several months. Adam remembered the newspaper in his hand, and he thrust it towards Ronan. 

The front page headline read “Hogwarts professor and wife mysteriously disappear.” Colin and Piper Greenmantle smiled up at them from the newsprint, and Ronan tore the page in half. “I’ll save you the trouble of reading it,” Adam provided. “The Ministry is looking into it, but it's still in early stages. Mostly everyone is gossiping about how the Defense professor job is cursed again.” 

Ronan nodded, too much on his mind to really absorb what Adam was telling him. He didn't know what to say, so he said what was on his mind. “Kavinsky is transferring to Durmstrang.” 

“How do you know?” What Adam really meant was: “have you talked to him?”

“Heard it through the grapevine.”

Adam nodded. “I'm sorry you didn't feel like you could come to us. We weren't trying to push you away; we just didn't know how to be there for you.”

“No, it was never about that.” He cursed in frustration. He had never been good with words, so he was struggling to properly explain. “Everything exploded and I didn't know how to deal. When I was with K, I didn't have to think about the pain and I didn't have to think about you.” 

He said it without thinking, and he prayed Adam would understand that he didn't mean it, but that would be a lie.

Adam clenched his fist and took a deep breath. “You know, love’s supposed to be good. I was never taught how to love but I know that it's not supposed to be a burden.”

Ronan never said anything about love, and he wondered how long Adam had known, but if he was honest with himself he knew Adam had known since the beginning, almost. Known certainly well before he dated Sargent. 

“It's… not. It was just too much to handle. I didn't have the emotional capacity for anything but my grief.” His love for Adam transformed into another form of grief, for a while, but he didn't say that. He didn't need to. 

Adam didn't say anything, so Ronan continued, “I saw Sargent and Gansey holding hands earlier.”

Adam sighed and rubbed at his face a little. “I’ve been watching them for a while now, and I was so bitter, at first. But we’ve both moved on, so what is there to be upset about anymore? I think Gansey will be much better for her than I was.”

“And you?” 

Adam knew it was a test. He scooted closer to Ronan, so close their sides were touching, and slid their hands together. 

“Me? I missed you.” He was done with the drama and ready to be straightforward. The massive blush creeping into Ronan's cheeks was just a bonus. Ronan looked at him, questioning. This was new, and exciting, and scary. 

Adam responded by quirking his lips just so, a little smile, a reintroduction. Ronan brought Adan’s hand, still tightly woven with his own, and placed a kiss on Adam’s knuckle. They stayed like that, holding hands, wrapped up in their thoughts. 

After a while, Adam spoke up. “Ronan,” he began, and Ronan would have been content never hearing any other word again. “Do you remember when we were eleven, and I half hoped that I was a wizard just so I could keep you and Gansey and this magical world?” Ronan nodded, and Adam continued. “When I got my letter, it just felt so right. Because of my father I tried to suppress it, but I could just feel the magic. You knew, all those years ago, before I did. About me being a wizard, but also about the ley lines.” Adam shook his head, marveling about Ronan’s intuition. “I never did thank you for believing in me so strongly, back before we really knew each other.”

In response, Ronan separated their hands so he could cup Adam's face. He placed a single kiss on Adam’s lips, deep but feather light. What else could he say? Adam knew it all. 

Things between the friends were still a little broken, and Ronan would be grieving for a long time to come. But this was a start.


End file.
